Project 3: Animating with Audio

Guidelines:

1. Choose or create any audio piece that you would like to animate. This can include songs, speeches, or a talk track that you make for a character animation.

2. Using any combination of visual media in addition to AfterEffects, use the audio as an essential part that determines timing, style, and action. The audio MUST be the prime motivator for your animation and should be included from the very beginning.

3. Along with formal considerations such as, color and texture you should also consider The Principles of Animation. Consider the visual translation of the audio... what qualities does it suggest? How does it move? How will this affect your animation? What audio events can you turn into visual events? How will you make the audio and your animation into a cohesive unit? Should there be background audio? Does the audio have to play straight through?

In our tutorials, we'll be covering:

Masks- masking, drips/splatters, shadows, vignettes.
3D- camera basics, lighting basics, null objects.
Displacement Maps- offset, creating movement based on luminance.
Audio Basics- converting to AIFF, markers, effects, using expressions with audio.
Lip Synching- using time remapping to synch a character's mouth to their audio.

 

Requirements:

Storyboarding:
Make a minimum of two preliminary storyboards in your sketchbooks (or digitally and document in sketchbook). Select the most effective solution and complete one story board to discuss.

Animating:
Your animation must include ALL of the following:

1. Create a new composition in AfterEffects that is 320x240 pixels in size 30-45 seconds in length @ 15 fps.

2. Import and animate your selected audio track. The track MUST be converted to .aiff format and saved to your hard drive node.

3. When finished make a Movie with the following render settings: 320x240, 15 fps, QuickTime format, MPEG-4 Video Compressor at 75%(High) quality, Faster Compression. If this looks bad, try some other options and use what looks best while keeping the file size small.

4. Name your movie, YourLastName_3..mov

5. Follow the steps for preparing your files and uploading animations to the web. Don't be afraid to try other settings to get better results.

Tutorial Materials

Corner Theme

Throwing Knives

Dots

Party Kid

Party Kid Audio

ART230_3D